Authorities end search for teen who was headed for O.C.

Authorities have called off their search for missing teen Bryce Laspisa at Castaic Lake in Los Angeles County.

Divers and searchers on foot, on horseback and in all-terrain vehicles haven’t found any trace of Laspisa since his Toyota Highlander was discovered Aug. 30 overturned on a boat access road leading to the lake.

“We searched all areas of the lake and didn’t see any signs (Laspisa is there),” Deputy Johnie Jones of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Parks Bureau said Wednesday.

The case has been turned over to the department’s homicide bureau, which is responsible for missing-person investigations, he said.

Members of Laspisa’s family could not be reached for comment.

Detectives determined that a burning body found Sept. 4 on Lake Hughes Road near Castiac Lake is a Los Angeles homicide victim and not Laspisa.

Authorities and family members are puzzled by Laspisa’s disappearance.

Laspisa, 19, left his girlfriend’s apartment in Chico about 11:30 p.m. Aug. 28 and began driving on I-5 toward Laguna Niguel, his mother, Karen Laspisa, has said. He ran out of gas in Kern County the next morning and received roadside assistance.

He was near the Buttonwillow rest area that evening when deputies, responding to a missing-person report from his parents, contacted him around 8 p.m. The deputies found him in good spirits and searched his car but didn’t turn up any alcohol or drugs, Karen Laspisa said.

He called his parents several hours later, about 2 a.m. Aug. 30, to say he was pulling off I-5 to sleep in his car in a residential area. They haven’t spoken to him since.